Grey
by LadyBraken
Summary: Oneshot- The last days of Grindelwald, in a blur of grey... Or maybe, in a soft remembrance of colors. Grindeldore implied!


This is a little one-shot about the last days of Grindelwald. Grindeldore implied!

I hope you enjoy, reviews are appreciated!

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GREY

He was staring at the gray wall.  
Still.  
Everything was gray here. It had always been. War needs no colour, war needs no joy.  
If he had known.

The cold metal of the collar stopped bruising his neck years ago. Now it was hurting far beyond his skin, flesh and bones.  
His home had now become his prison.

The cold had impregnated his old body. He stopped shaking a long time ago.

He wasn't weak.

There was nothing. Nothing to lay his gaze on, except the gray, cold wall of stone and the shining chain that linked him with it.  
He had start to be part of his prison.  
There was only one wall. Everything else around him was a dark, bottomless pit.

 _Jump jump jump..._

He knew he would never touch the ground. The chain would tense, and the collar break his neck. He may die immediately, he may suffer for hours, choking to death, with for last sensation, the cold still biting his skin and his own blood in his mouth.  
He didn't really care anymore. He was numb.  
At first, he had tried to escape. Then to have a better life. He had seduced the young boy who was giving his food, and he had started to receive bread instead of cold gruel.  
They killed him. He knew it.  
He didn't have the right to claim mercy.  
So he had eaten the gruel. Tasteless. Grey.

 _Jump jump jump..._

He was dying. He was dying for a very long time now...  
He didn't really care anymore.  
Everything was Gray.  
He liked colours.  
Iridescent colours, vibrant colours. Strong blues, deep reds, luminous youths. That was what he had loved. Colours. The cacophonies, the living chaos. The colours that came out of his wand, the colours reflected in his eyes, the colours he sported in his voice, his clothes, his smell.  
He hadn't love him. But he had loved the colours.  
He wondered when he would stop dying.  
He had no regrets of course. One cannot have anything like that while believing in the rightness of one's actions.  
He didn't act anymore. He just sat here, attached to the wall.  
He wished he had visions. Cruel ones, soft ones. Someone to talk to. Even him. But his mind was with them.  
His mind was stubbornly letting him alone. It was as lifeless, as useless as this only wall.  
He used to have a sharp mind and a silver thongue. It was part of his charm, with his look. His wit used to amuse him.  
Not that he cared.

He had others things in mind. Projects, great projects, setting his young and genius spirit on fire, contaminating everything around him, burning, destroying all he could for the Greater Good. His mind, it had rise legions. It had started a war and sent thousands of people to death, to their future.  
All of that for the Greater Good.  
Their blood was so red...  
He couldn't remember red. He couldn't remember Blue. He couldn't.  
He couldn't jump.

He could only stay still, staring at the wall. His own future was that wall.  
He didn't hear the sound of the gate opening and closing. The plate scraping on the floor. It was part of the silence.  
He had scream, at first. For days, weeks maybe. Complete hysteria, anger, pain. His voice had broken. Now he didn't know how to scream.  
Alone.

He had liked it, his voice. Whispering everything in his ear while he was falling asleep on his chest. Putting his ideas into this colorful minds, shaping it, molding it.  
Not that he cared.

He remembered the hysteria of the first weeks. He had to get out, his men needed him. He had to lead the world to a better future.

 _Let me Out Please..._

He had thought that. But never, never had he begged.  
He had wanted to feel. He had been so eager. Touch the stone, again and again, until his skin had become to hurt, so stiff that he couldn't do it anymore.  
Of course, he didn't wish to die. His emblem was the symbol of immortality. He had to live, because his vision had to live, because the world needed him, because he was so much above them all, that only him could lead them...  
Fear.

 _Jump jump jump..._

Because he feared death. Emptiness, nihil. Lifeless, still. He had wanted to live again and again, to keep seeing, breathing, feeling. Feel the leather of the old books under his fingers, the softness of the satin, the wind in his hair, the warmth of the human skin.  
But now...  
Grey. Alone.  
No black, no white. Just an ocean of mediocre gray. A symphony of quietness.  
He had found a phoenix, that summer. Maybe he still has it... He had look so happy when he saw it...  
Not that he cared.

He had the same laugh as the burning bird. A trill, melodious. Full of colors. Himself had always been gray, inside.  
Now everything was gray.  
But the fear was gone.

 _"You know, it's a good thing when it's gone."_

He looked around him. Nothing.  
Absolutely Nothing.  
 _Who was that?_

 _"You know who I am."_

 _Jump jump jump..._

He knew. Of course, he knew. But he didn't felt it, the fear.  
 _"I only come when it's gone."_ It answered.

So that was it. Finally, finally. How many years had he waited... He had been dying for a long, long time.  
He could see it now. A black a deeper than the surrounding darkness. A black that was the final absence of colors.  
He had tears of joy rolling on his lifeless face. He couldn't muster to express feelings anymore.  
He had no regrets. He wondered if they would tell him. Not that he cared.

The dark was waiting for him. Patiently. It had all eternity, after all.  
He rose, straightened up as much as his old body could muster. The dark was stretching its arms, waiting to embrace him, waiting to him to-

 _Jump jump jump..._

A step. Another. It wasn't hard, really. He could feel the floor under his bare feet.  
Then he couldn't.  
Under him, at the bottom of the pit, he saw a light. A grayish, pale light. He saw him. He had didn't have that red, flamboyant hair anymore. No, he was like the rest.  
Grey.

 _Jump._

He stopped. He was ready, he had time. Just a moment, just, just a moment.  
The door open, and he is next to him.  
Grey.

He talks, and they both know what his eyes are saying.  
 _You didn't care._

And he answers: _I didn't._

He say that Someone is coming. That he mustn't talk about the wand. He say a lot of empty, empty words in that gray voice. The emptiness is on him too, on that black hand.  
His absent voice echoes on the wall, on the metal, on the nothing, in his head. He is talking about a world that already disappeared.

"You know that he will torture me. Kill me..."

He looks at the old prisoner with some sort of repress pain.

"I'll do it."

His voice is surprisingly clear. Maybe everything is clear when it had no more use.

And hope. There is hope on his face... "I don't intend to decay here for ever, Albus."

That's it. He just washed that horrid hope.  
They exchange a last look. A last one in this life. But there is no twinkle, no life, no feelings in that look. It is a statement.

 _You didn't care. I didn't._

It was tragic, really. The irony.  
So one of them go, and the other stay in the dark, waiting. And the Nothing stay here, staring at the wall, or maybe at the man.  
Time pass. Time always pass, but he cannot feel it anymore. Then, the one that was supposed to come came. He asks, and he doesn't find answers.  
It's funny, he is gray, so gray... Even his anger. He is afraid. Afraid of the dark, afraid of death.

If he knew, poor child, if he knew...

He almost laughs. So that was it. He looks at the Dark. It's time, don't you think?  
It didn't answer.  
"Children these days... what do they know about the Dark Arts?" He snarled.  
He intended to go with panache.

There was a crack, maybe. A flash of something. He only feels the weight lifting of his tired, so tired chest. There were arms, cold, infinite arms of nothing around him as he remembered them.  
He would have like to see the colors in the end.

But he had been gray, so gray...

Maybe...

Maybe he had care after all.


End file.
